Monthly Archives: January 2014

Britannica on architecture, c. 1911

Posted on January 31, 2014 by David Brussat

I dragged out my 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. My edition is actually the 12th edition, which is the 11th plus an appendix updating, in 1922, various important subjects, many of which had seen their articles in the famous … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Blast from the past: America’s got architecture!

Posted on January 30, 2014 by David Brussat

In my weekly column, called “Architecture critic, heal thyself!” and posted this morning, I referred to the elephant in architecture’s living room. That is the fact that most Americans prefer traditional to modern architecture. Among other evidence for this is … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Blast from past | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Column: Architecture critic, heal thyself!

Posted on January 30, 2014 by David Brussat

Witold Rybczynski’s 18th book, “How Architecture Works: A Humanist’s Toolkit,” opens with a quarrel in its title. By any definition of humanism, architecture has been broken for at least seven decades. The book, published in October by Farrar, Straus and … Continue reading →

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Review of “The Monster-Builder”

Posted on January 29, 2014 by David Brussat

Michael Mehaffy, of Portland, Ore., and the TradArch list, sends this review from The Oregonian of the new play at the Artists Repertory Theatre there by Stanford University’s playwright-in-residence, Amy Freed. Michael pulls out this interesting quote from the review: … Continue reading →

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Past blast: Review of Versaci’s “new old” house book

Posted on January 27, 2014 by David Brussat

My blog on how to resolve the difficulty of finding an old house to buy mentioned Russell Versaci’s prefab houses, but I was unable to access my review of his book from 2008. Here it is, reprinted courtesy of The … Continue reading →

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Just stumbled on this …

Posted on January 26, 2014 by David Brussat

Just stumbled on this, which I really gotta love! I thought he was going to somehow hoist me on my own petard, but he ends up … waving my flag? At least I think so. You decide. [Several readers have noted … Continue reading →

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Can’t find/afford an old house? Try this

Posted on January 26, 2014 by David Brussat

This article by Dale Hrabi in the Wall Street Journal called to mind my dear old neighborhood in D.C. and our friends the van der Taks (three sons, Steven, Derek and Laurens, whose ages closely matched those of me and … Continue reading →

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Vandalism at Corbu’s Ronchamp

Posted on January 25, 2014 by David Brussat

How could they tell? Seriously, the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut at Ronchamp, with its rough texture and swoopy lines, may be the least objectionable of Le Corbusier’s buildings. Although William J.R. Curtis has more respect for the chapel than … Continue reading →

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Column: World roses and raspberries for 2013

Posted on January 23, 2014 by David Brussat

Here, from around the globe, are roses and raspberries for buildings, people and events that moved the world as we know it closer to or further from the world as we’d like it to be: • A raspberry to Lisbon … Continue reading →

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See sequestered salacious montage here!

Posted on January 23, 2014 by David Brussat

An anonymous donor responded to a challenge in an earlier post about the Chinese newspaper headquarters and the proposed soccer stadium (read it here), and sent me the above image, exclaiming that the challenge was “too easy.” The image is … Continue reading →

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